What happens when a former President faces 34 felony convictions? We unravel the historic and unprecedented conviction of Donald Trump, exploring the key testimonies from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels that sealed his fate. We'll navigate the critical involvement of Stormy Daniels and the corroborative timeline that fortified the prosecution's case. This episode takes you through the broader implications of Trump's conviction, challenging the notion that pointing to others' misdeeds can excuse individual actions, and setting a new precedent for accountability at the highest levels of power.
In the midst of political turmoil, we investigate how Trump's legal woes could reshape the political landscape. Despite his felony charges, Florida statutes might still allow him to vote for himself. We'll also dissect the truth and misinformation surrounding the case, featuring insights from James Comey on Trump's behavior towards the judiciary. Additionally, we highlight the irony of influential figures claiming oppression while wielding vast power. Join us as we reflect on the unwavering loyalty of Trump's supporters and the potential embrace of victimhood that could turn legal defeat into a political rallying cry.
This episode doesn't shy away from controversy; we scrutinize the double standards in the legal prosecutions of powerful individuals like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. We delve into the polarized state of American politics and the erosion of public trust in the judicial system. From the historical context of Clinton's settlements to Trump's criminal prosecution, we probe the complexities of legal accountability and political bias. Engage with us as we stress the importance of respecting the legal process and maintaining civility in political discourse, all while examining the high stakes of prosecuting a former president.
What happens when a former President faces 34 felony convictions? We unravel the historic and unprecedented conviction of Donald Trump, exploring the key testimonies from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels that sealed his fate. We'll navigate the critical involvement of Stormy Daniels and the corroborative timeline that fortified the prosecution's case. This episode takes you through the broader implications of Trump's conviction, challenging the notion that pointing to others' misdeeds can excuse individual actions, and setting a new precedent for accountability at the highest levels of power.
In the midst of political turmoil, we investigate how Trump's legal woes could reshape the political landscape. Despite his felony charges, Florida statutes might still allow him to vote for himself. We'll also dissect the truth and misinformation surrounding the case, featuring insights from James Comey on Trump's behavior towards the judiciary. Additionally, we highlight the irony of influential figures claiming oppression while wielding vast power. Join us as we reflect on the unwavering loyalty of Trump's supporters and the potential embrace of victimhood that could turn legal defeat into a political rallying cry.
This episode doesn't shy away from controversy; we scrutinize the double standards in the legal prosecutions of powerful individuals like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. We delve into the polarized state of American politics and the erosion of public trust in the judicial system. From the historical context of Clinton's settlements to Trump's criminal prosecution, we probe the complexities of legal accountability and political bias. Engage with us as we stress the importance of respecting the legal process and maintaining civility in political discourse, all while examining the high stakes of prosecuting a former president.
Found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. All 34 are felonies. Donald Trump has now been convicted of 34 different felony crimes by a jury of his peers in Manhattan.
Speaker 2:This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It's a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is gonna be November 5th by the people and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. We have a sole respect, da and the whole thing. We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man and it's okay. I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our Constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent, and I think it's just a disgrace and we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win, because our country's gone to hell. We don't have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess. We're a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions terrorists and they're taking over our country.
Speaker 2:We have a country that's in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one. We're the conflicted judge. We should have never been allowed to try this case Never and we will fight for our Constitution. This is long from over, thank you very much.
Speaker 3:So welcome to the Darrell McLean Show. I'm your host, darrell McLean. Today is 5-31 of 2024. You are listening to episode 408.
Speaker 3:And let's just before I get into the overall, what happens here and etc. What we just saw. So, basically, this is a historic event because Donald Trump is now the first ever president to be convicted of any type of felonies. Was this a shock to me? The answer is going to be no, and I'll tell you why. And I'll tell you why Because the lawyer, the previous lawyer for Donald Trump, the fixer as he was known, michael Cohen, had already gone to jail for the same thing and he, even when testifying several times about why he did things said for Donald Trump and the behest of Donald Trump, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:So you have the lawyer for the Trump organization already had to plead guilty and went down. And then, not only that, you had the chief financial officer, alan Weisselberg. The chief financial officer, alan Weisselberg, at the same time have to go into some type of agreement with the prosecution in order to avoid lengthy jail time, etc. So you already have the lawyer, you already have the chief financial officer. And then, when you looked at the way that they rolled out the case. You bring in, uh, the stormy daniels, who basically testifies to the entire event when the event happened, uh, when she got the money. So you have the one person, um, already being in jail, having got released, to testify. You have the cooperating evidence coming from the chief financial officer, who basically pointed all fingers at trump as well as being as knowing about these things. Then you have stormy daniels coming in basically confirming the timeline. You have michael co Cohen reconfirming the timeline, and you have the Karen McDougal stuff thrown in as well, and it was pretty obvious that there was a falsifying of the business records in order to and that was the question Was it to influence the campaign of 2016? Or was it just to not embarrass his wife? And the biggest question was could it be both? And either way, would it still be illegal?
Speaker 3:Now, the obvious thing that jumps out to us here is what Donald Trump is guilty of is more than likely common practice in a lot of these businesses. But and there are even I will stipulate that there are even politicians who are way more for lack of a better term crooked than Donald Trump, and they have not been hauled off into court and they have not been formally charged and they do some of the same things. Now here's why that's not a great argument because whataboutism has never worked in any court system and it never will work in any court system. You can't go to court and say, look, yes, I did A and B, but Hillary did a lot worse. That's not a real legal defense, because person A did something does not exonerate person B who did the exact same thing. And this is a lot of corruption stuff coming out now. You got Bob Menendez in Jersey and you got the Democrat I forget his name in Texas, who's in trouble now for corruption.
Speaker 3:And so Donald Trump has just somewhat fell on his own sword, because I think everybody kind of knew that this was the one that he was going to be guilty of, and the and this is the only one that is going to be coming up before the election, and I honestly think it have it will have no effect on things in the whole. The people who like Donald Trump are will still like Donald Trump at the end of the day, and the people who detest Donald Trump are still going to detest Donald Trump. At the end of the day, people will still say the same thing about oh, the country's under attack and we need to do something, and civil war, yada, yada, yada. Nothing much has changed except one billionaire elite has been found guilty in the presence of time, like other billionaire elites get found guilty every now and then, normally when they're old and out of power. It doesn't really affect anyone, really affect anyone. And so Donald Trump, even because of the way the Florida statutes are written, may actually still be able to vote, even though he has the felony charges, because the way the Florida law is written, the Florida concedes to the state that you got your conviction. So in New York, new Yorkers are actually allowed to vote, even if they're felonies, if they have felonies, if they did not go to jail. So if Donald Trump does not see a day in jail he goes to house arrest or something like that, yes, he will still be able to vote for himself for president.
Speaker 3:Do something that I said I wanted to do.
Speaker 3:But I'm actually apprehensive, but we're going to have to barrel through anyway.
Speaker 3:And I initially had said I didn't want to do a lot of the Trump trial stuff and I think I even said either I said it to one of the patrons when they asked me a question, or I said it specifically on the show that I would only cover this in detail once a verdict had been reached.
Speaker 3:And now a verdict has been reached and taken some time to reflect on everything I have seen on the case, on everything people have been saying. I think I'm going to go through this, some of the arguments, and I'm going to analyze it for what is true and what is false. But I want us to be able to get a flavor of what is being said, because that is what will be said so first, because that is what will be said so first, I'm going to go to James Comey, who is the former FBI director who a lot of people credit, which, for the reason why Donald Trump became president in the first place, because James Comey released those documents a few days before I want to say two weeks before the presidential thing wrapped up and came out and said you know Hillary Clinton, you know all this stuff and a lot of people who blame James Comey, who was a lifelong Republican, for giving Trump the election. But this is what James Comey had to say about Donald Trump wanting to go to jail, which was something impecunious.
Speaker 5:For the verdict. You had said it was highly likely to result in a conviction. That's obviously what happened. A year ago. You made this prediction about Trump wearing an ankle bracelet. Do you think he's going to be wearing an ankle bracelet or be in jail after the sentencing?
Speaker 4:I don't know. It seems unlikely, but I've never seen a defendant beg for it more by attacking the judge, attacking the jury, attacking the witnesses One of the key things in assessing what sentence is appropriate a judge looks at. So are you sorry for what you did? Are you respecting the system? This defendant is running the other way.
Speaker 3:So that has been something that I have been contemplating is that, whether people like to admit it or not, there's a game that's always played on the left and the right, and that game is the Oppression Olympics. If you can run yourself headlong into the victim status and take up that mantle, you actually sit in a very comfortable position. And one of the most ironic and hilarious things that I have seen in American politics as of late is how a bunch of very rich people, normally of a certain persuasion, always somehow tend to cry about everything they can't say, while they're normally saying the thing they're saying. They can't say how the country is changing, as they sit and fully establish the fact that the country is practically, for all intents and purposes, still the same, and how oppressed they, even though financially they are in the top of 10%. It happens with comedians who are multimillionaires constantly complaining about not being able to say or do anything. It happens with a host of television shows, normally on cable. We can't say X, y, z anymore, asyz anymore, as they say xyz, and then have a panel on to explain why they can't say xyz, as they all say xyz.
Speaker 3:And it also happens to politicians who kind of decry the changing and the things I can no longer get away with, while they continue to get away with it. It is just kind of a gimmicky thing that happens. So what Comey is pointing to is this notion that Donald Trump is begging to go to jail and that would be under the analysis that if he does go to jail he receives the automatic martyrdom that comes with that. They are arresting him because he's running for president. He is a political prisoner. Donald Trump has even made these comparisons to himself and the late Nelson Mandela, who was a political prisoner jailed for decades in South Africa.
Speaker 3:Now if you want to go look at the history of that, of course you will have to see that of course, in a lot of historical situations, that of course in a lot of historical situations, the United States government was on the wrong side of the South African apartheid issue. As if you are a critic of imperial power, especially if you are a critic of the military-industrial complex, that is not going to be a shocking notion that we are on the wrong side of many, many issues. So not to talk about that for too long. Different day, different show. We'd have to take the rest of my life to pick through all of that.
Speaker 3:But another person that said something interesting was one of the exonerated five Central Park members by the name of Yusuf Salam, who was one of the five Latino, black and Latino teenagers who were accused of a brutal, brutal rape in Central Park park. Now this became um heightened because then a youngster uh, donald trump was then took out a full page ad and wrote that you know, basically some they should be killed and uh, no, also. So just very um, you can go look that up reading for yourself. I don't want to relitigate that, but there was a very touching not a documentary but an adaptation, you know, a movie done by Netflix that it takes a lot to make me slur. It takes a lot to make me cry. It takes a lot to make me slur, it takes a lot to make me cry.
Speaker 3:And and that did uh, it did uh pull back something out of me. It was called when they see us and it was very powerful word, a dramatization of the story of the central park five all of the members with you know Oprah and people like that, and it was very touching. So Yusuf Islam Yusuf Salam, who is now, you know, very successful, ran for political office, et cetera was one of the other five who somewhat had the strongest support structure. He's a, he was a Muslim, and so he had this to say about the verdict and we're going to go to that and now.
Speaker 6:For many, many years, I called it the criminal system of injustice because of what happened to me and people just like me. And when it came to Donald Trump, I was very, very clear. I wanted to make sure that people understood that I wanted him to be afforded the opportunity that was not afforded me or my brothers. They looked at the color of our skin and deemed us guilty in a country that says you're innocent until proven guilty, whereas when you come to the court system and you have a person who has been privileged and has used their money to garner favor, now getting to understand what exactly the criminal legal system is all about. I wanted him to be able to feel that, to see that, to experience that, and I was proud that our jurors 34 counts. When you think about the 12 jurors, each of them looked at all of the counts and made a decision to find this man guilty.
Speaker 3:Now, of course and I'm going to get into this a bit later as well there's going to be people that say the system is rigged, and so on and so forth. My simple critique is this there was a long time where there was a I'll just say a group of people, just to be nice, that had this critique in the 80s and in the 90s, in the early 2000s, about the criminal justice system and even the people who funnel people to the criminal justice system that we call the police. Now those people were shouted down for not trusting the government, not loving America, being soft on crime, every single thing. I just find it rather hypocritical, not odd, that when you see the full weight of the justice system bear down on somebody you like, how all of a sudden people change their tune, how all of a sudden we need criminal justice reform, how all of a sudden life minus actually just a year and a half has been in some form of law enforcement, whether it was for the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security or the private sector, or the private sector. I have never fooled myself enough to think that everything that happens inside of those institutions was above board at all times, in perpetuity. I knew for a fact that there are some times that people get railroaded. I knew for a fact that there are some times that people take plea deals. I knew for a fact that there are some times that people take plea deals not because they are guilty, but because they don't have enough money to levy a full-throated defense of themselves. I know there are people that have taken deals because they want to get out of jail, because they are the sole proprietor in their family and they have to get out and get back to work.
Speaker 3:I have been in court and watched people waive rights that are not important to them because they're too young to even fathom and to not be coy about it. It's like this. We all know statistically, when you look at the data, that younger people tend to not vote. People who vote are normally in the older category and they vote consistently. So I've been in court several times for several years and watched young people take plea deals where they plead their rights away and the first thing to go is your right to vote and your right to bear arms.
Speaker 3:But if you're somebody who doesn't vote anyway and doesn't believe in the political process, you have no idea what you're giving away. He doesn't believe in the political process. You have no idea what you're giving away and you don't think the people inside of the system know that. You deal with people who go out and they want to be defense attorneys you know and people who want to be prosecuting attorneys, and sometimes you look at the weight of how much the defense attorney has to work with, and even some defense attorneys will admit I looked at this case five minutes for five minutes before I went to court and that is not enough time for a substantial defense.
Speaker 3:So if you don't have the means and the resources to go out and get a good lawyer who is going to have a team dedicated to defending you, you were probably screwed over before you even got in the building. And we all know it. There was a CSNBC report that came out years ago the first time I saw the report was in 2019 that most Americans a very large number, could not afford an emergency of $1,000. It went on to talk about how many people could not afford an emergency of $500.
Speaker 3:Well, guess what If you are facing the criminal justice system and you have to get a lawyer? Guess what If you are facing the criminal justice system and you have to get a lawyer, you'd be hard pressed to find a good one for $500. And you may even be hard pressed to find a good one for $1,000. So that means what the system is rigged against people who don't have resources. Now, if I were to keep going and add in things like race and sex and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, we'd be here for 52 years and I just as much as I'd like to have 52 years or so left on Earth.
Speaker 3:I don't want to spend that much of this show covering that topic, because that would just make us all rather depressed and we'd have to be debating the topic, and they have been debating since I was a kid. So I'll just go ahead and say this one simple thing. As I have said before and I will say it again, I have said this when it came to the criminal justice system, when I used to tell people it's best to get a private attorney, I would always say it. Some of my friends who are in the criminal justice system hate it.
Speaker 3:Some of them did not but I would say yet and still, the judge worked for the state. The police officer works for the state. The defense attorney most of the time works for the state. The prosecuting attorney a lot of times works for the state. The bailiff works for the state. The corrections officer works for the state. The only person there that is the anomaly is you, and you want to ask me why. I have not believed for years that this system was unfair. We'll be right back with more. So, as we like to do, we like to shout out our sister shows here Overopinionated with Josh Scott and Lungs B, with T-Bone and Chick Brew. Now you can check the shows out at the exact same place where you're listening to this.
Speaker 3:Have you ever been told that you are overopinionated? How about this one? You can talk about everything, but don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics, don't ever bring up anything controversial. My name is Darrell McClain, the host of the Darrell McClain Show, and I want to introduce you to a show called Over-Opinionated with my friend, josh Scott from Southwest Virginia.
Speaker 3:Josh has always been told that he was over-opinionated. He has always tried to hold back his opinions and when he had to say something, he backed them up with facts and logic. Since he has grown up in many ways, he's had to change a lot of his views and his opinions, as a lot of people should. Now Josh is not a millionaire from Fox News or CNN. He's just a hardworking blue-collar type of guy. Give Josh Scott and his show Overopinionated a shot, and now you can find him on patreoncom. Slash overopinionated. And now you can also find him at Twitter at overopinionated679. You can check him out on Twitter at nrVguy, underscore seven, six, seven, nine, or if you're opinionated with Josh Scott, where he is a soft-spoken guy telling you the truth.
Speaker 7:President, donald Trump is a convicted felon. Those are the words you're going to hear over and over again between now and November's election. He's the first former president in American history to be criminally convicted. He may soon be the first sitting president in American history with a criminal conviction, in no small part because of what happened last night. Trump's enemies were, of course, quick to dance on his legal grave A miracle is too strong a word, but a really a day for celebration.
Speaker 2:Your defense was weak because you were weak. They had no argument because there is no argument.
Speaker 10:You were too scared to testify because you knew Donald.
Speaker 6:You know You're guilty. Guilty as sin.
Speaker 11:Donald Trump is a felon. Donald Trump is a criminal.
Speaker 12:Donald Trump may not vote for himself. Donald Trump may not own a gun.
Speaker 8:Thank you? Is anything going on today?
Speaker 7:Well, they might live to regret all this bleak when outside looking in this case was a mess. The star witness, michael Cohen, admitted stealing thousands of dollars from the Trump organization during his testimony a bigger offense than the one that Trump was on trial for. Cohen himself is a convicted felon. His compulsive lies are a matter of public record. But the fact is that Trump was found guilty on all counts by a jury of his peers, and now America has to face up to the consequences, and the biggest casualty may be public faith in their judicial system. This time, many people will agree with the former president's own assessment.
Speaker 2:This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. The real verdict is going to be November 5th, by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man. Our whole country is being raped right now. This was done by the Biden administration.
Speaker 7:Well, donald Trump's unfounded election denials undermine the American people's faith in the democratic process, something I've criticized him to his face for. But the hush money trial will be no different than the scale of his impact on the public's trust in their institutions. I suspect it will be no less damaging. This verdict doesn't show that everyone's equal under the law, as many are now arguing. It shows that anybody, even a former president, could be convicted for a relatively trivial offense if the full weight of the establishment is brought to bear against them. Prosecution had to perform judicial gymnastics just to make this a felony case. The district attorney, alvin Bragg, is a card-carrying Democrat. He's made no secret of his feelings about Donald Trump or his desire to nail it legally. Ask yourself this would any other businessman have found themselves in court on felony charges for this? If the answer is no, then self-evidently not everyone is equal under the law. This could open the legal floodgates to political prosecutions motivated by revenge and spite, and plenty of the Democrats now celebrating could soon find the prison boot ends up on the other foot.
Speaker 7:I never thought I'd live to see an American president convicted of felony charges. It's an extraordinary moment in modern history, but I always imagined if it did happen, then the case might be about something like a deadly illegal war, an act of treason or corruption on a grand scale. In the end, it was nothing like that. It was a tawdry overreach designed to humiliate and discredit a political leader, involving a payoff to a porn star for an alleged one-night stand 18 years ago, and for that they dragged an American president through a criminal court for two months when he should have been campaigning for the election. This, I'm afraid, will go down as a sad and shameful and, frankly, ridiculous day for America. Well, that's my view.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, I'm not going to play that whole debate that happened. I am going to link it in the show notes because it was an hour four minutes and 34 seconds of it. It was an hour four minutes and 34 seconds of. I'm not going to even say it was a great conversation, but it was. It was good enough. Where it can be linked in the show, I'll just leave it at that. And that was Piers Morgan of Piers Morgan Uncensored. So, first off, and let me, let me just do a tad bit of cleaning up that I don't necessarily need to do, but I feel like I'm going to do.
Speaker 3:What Pierce said is not necessarily false, but it doesn't tell the whole story. So Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, he in fact did make history because he was found guilty on the 34 counts of uh, and it was not what pierce said. The president had went to court and been found guilty because he allegedly had sex with a porn star some, however, many years ago. That's not. That's not what Donald Trump, that's not the problem. The problem is it was falsifying business records in the criminal trial in New York. Now, that is not normally a major felony-like problem. Now that's something that we have to be 100% transparent about. But the problem becomes that because those business records were falsified and this is what was alleged and then adjudicated and found to be guilty, what was alleged was that those falsifying of business records was because there were wanted, there was trying to be a cover-up of a larger crime, of this campaign finance stuff, where you are basically shielding from the american public that you uh did this, had this affair and you know it'll affect your campaign, and so that leads to your campaign finance violations, etc. Etc.
Speaker 3:What I what would have made this more complicated was the fact that when you have people like the guy that owned the magazine his name escapes me now.
Speaker 3:Look, I want to say the guy's name is Lex Wessner, but if that's not, it whatever showing up to court saying, oh yeah, we would take these, these stories that we knew were true and we would buy them off so we could protect Donald Trump. Now, what I find fascinating about this is now people are not upset about that, and these are the same types of people when we just talk about being consistent and hypocrisy and so on and so forth. These are the same type of people who are upset with, let's say the New York Times, let's say Facebook, let's say the Washington Post, let's say every new liberal news outlet. Because they said, wait a minute, news outlets did not want to, in 2020, publish the Hunter Biden stories because that would embarrass Joe Biden, and that was political interference Now those same people, when they have Les Wesner or whatever his name, is saying oh yes, in 2016, we would constantly get all these stories about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3:We would buy the stories, we'd bury them to make sure that nobody heard them. If you don't see that as the exact same thing, um, I, I, I. I don't want to be insulting, but I just think you need to uh go in your closet and get on your knees, uh say a prayer and ask God to give you some type of ideological consistency, and I'll just leave it at that. Now I want to say something that the peers got right. That is troubling and I think we need to wrestle with this.
Speaker 3:There were people when George Bush was president and back then, when I was a Republican, who were calling George Bush a war criminal and everything else.
Speaker 3:George Bush did not go to court, he was never tried, he faced no jail time. He walks around as a free man. He's now celebrated by the liberal establishment as normalization, and war is something that we do with reckless abandon because it is good for business, and that should make us all feel uncomfortable with if you can charge a former sitting president for the falsifying of business records, but you cannot or don't not want to bring one on charges for the falsifying or how should I just say this delicately for the wrongful interpretation of intelligence information that led the united states into a multi-decaded war that cost the lives of thousands of americans and hundreds of thousands of people in iraq and afghanistan. If you cannot bring that up on charges, it does seem rather ridiculous that we are bringing Trump on charges about this matter. I'll just say that Now, on the other side of that argument. Of course, when you go to court and sit in court, you cannot say well, I don't see why I didn't get away with this. A lot of people have done a lot of things worse.
Speaker 7:This is the Young Turns founder Cenk Uygur, commentator Vincent Machana, former Republican Congressman George Santos and host of the News Agents USA podcast, the gloriously veteran journalist Emily Maitland. So welcome to all of you, emily. I can see you nodding furiously throughout my monologue there. So off you go. But my view, as I said there is, I think of all the four cases that he was facing, this was by far the weakest. I think it was a massive stretch to try and turn it into a felony and I think because of that, because Bragg is clearly such a partisan guy that is playing right into Trump's hands to play the martyr guy that is playing right into Trump's hands to play the martyr, and it will galvanize his base.
Speaker 3:We saw last night that the- so I may do this time and throughout, because it's kind of it started to somewhat piss me off a little bit To talk about a prosecutor as a partisan person. Person in America is it just is comical. Most prosecuting attorneys are elected, which means what? It's? A political position. If you're a political position in a duopoly, what does that mean? That means you're partisan.
Speaker 3:The Supreme Court of the United States you know the Supreme Court are appointed. Who are they appointed by? Presidents, water presidents, politicians. So the Supreme Court is a partisan public. Officials in robes. Under a lot of counties, the sheriffs are elected. People who vote in elections are partisan. Sheriffs have opinions. They normally engage in politics.
Speaker 3:Politics by its very nature is partisan, so this is somewhat nonsensical to say that somebody is a card carrying Democrat. No, no, duh. And they were elected by other card carrying Democrats and they probably were elected on a platform that said they're going to do X, y and Z and they went and did X, y and Z. And now we sit around and say I cannot believe this partisan actor did X, y and Z. What world have you been living in? All of them are partisan actors, from the president to the Supreme Court, to the legislator to the admin state. They're all partisan. This is what this system is. This is a two-party system, and the largest majority of people are people who don't participate. But the people who are participating, they are participating from a partisan lens that is baked into this cake now, and if you want to undo that, then we're going to have to do what, uh, george washington said we should do, which is to get rid of this two-party system, and let's just let the best arguments present themselves and go from there.
Speaker 7:The funding websites were literally breaking down because people were donating so much money. Could this not have the complete opposite effect that, at the moment, gleeful Democrats hope, which is it might propel him back to the White House?
Speaker 9:Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, I think, starting with the end. Of course, it could propel him back to the White House and, of course, his fundraising is likely to have gone up through the roof, skyrocketed since the verdict came out. I think I'd agree with you that it's the weakest of the four cases. I think when we first heard the charges from Alden Bragg, a lot of us were kind of raising our eyes at the number of them, you know, 34. It was actually consistently the same charge but brought on sort of different dates, and I think that still remains. It is the weakest of the four charges, but it is still the one that was before the court and it is still the one that was before the jury. And essentially, you're giving us the New York Post monologue, Piers, which I think is that if you decide that the whole thing is rigged which Trump has been doing way, way before these cases even came to court way, way before the 2020 election was fought he's used the word rate against him the whole time then clearly you're just going to propel that narrative to a place where you're feeling happy with it.
Speaker 9:I think that what happened in the court yesterday was that a jury who had been selected independently, gone through the ringer pretty much to assert their nuances and their leanings and all the rest of it, unanimously came to the conclusion that, with the evidence put before them, including documentary evidence, he was guilty of those charges. Now I think america will decide what they do with that. But I think if you're going to start undermining the rule of law, you set yourself against the american people. You set yourself against the people who have decided that they want to believe in the rule of law. You set yourself against the American people. You set yourself against the people who have decided that they want to believe in the rule of law, even yes, even for presidents.
Speaker 7:Okay, jane Ugo, you were also not nodding vigorously through my monologue, and here's the point I would put to you on the back of what Emily just said. You know I remember Bill Clinton having sex with an intern in the Oval Office while he was president. I remember him paying off another woman I think $800,000 over harassment allegations she made against him. What I don't remember is Bill Clinton, despite all that, ever appearing in a courtroom and being criminally prosecuted.
Speaker 3:And I think this is the problem that Democrats are now going to face, which is Now, look, I don't know how much of this I'm going to get into, but this is like the funny thing about this. If you remember everything that happened with Bill Clinton and if you listened to my interview with T-Bone, you know I'm no fan of the Clintons. I constantly plug the book no One Left to Lie to the Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by the late Christopher Hitchens. It just talks about what a scum Clinton actually was. Clinton actually was.
Speaker 3:But at any rate, the difference there and here is just minimal, but it is substantial when it comes to the legal portion of it, which is that what Bill Clinton did was there were allegations about him. He went through the, through the lawyers and court proceedings and paid the person to settle outside of court. Now, that may be admitting that he's guilty or whatever, but what he didn't do was, I don't know, pay the New York Times to kill the story or get friends at the New York Times to kill the story and then get his lawyer to pay off the person and then go to the Clinton Foundation and falsify records to pretend, like that, the event didn't happen. We know about all those things. We know about the amount of money, we know, we know the names of the women because they were paid, and they were paid through lawyers, and they were paid through lawyers by the legal means that the united states allows it to happen.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna let uh, these two, uh these these panelists respond, um, and I'm probably gonna get to something else I found rather interesting and um, so just get to jink yoga ofgar of the Young Turks on this.
Speaker 7:The apparent obvious double standard is not to defend anything that Trump has done. It's simply to say why is he the one who's been singled out for this treatment, given that Bill Clinton and others on the Democrat side were never treated this way?
Speaker 11:Yeah, pierce, I'm bilingual. I speak both populist and establishment, so in this case, I think that both sides have a point, but often misstated. So, first of all, does the establishment target people that challenge its power? Yes, it does. So it'll go against populist left and populist right. It'll try to do cancel culture. Whenever it wants to target someone, it'll dig. So it'll go against populist left and populist right. It'll try to do cancel culture. Whenever it wants to target someone, it'll dig and dig and dig.
Speaker 11:So I've been the victim of that. A lot of people have been the victim of that. But in my case, for example, they dug and dug and found absolutely nothing. So they had to go to jokes from 19 years ago jokes. So that's when you know someone's as clean as a whistle.
Speaker 11:But the minute you dig under Donald Trump, just a giant number of crimes spring up, because he's a lifelong con man and he's a lifelong criminal. So I think that what? But at the same time, maga has an instinct. That isn't wrong. So let me explain that, because the people in the establishment and Democrats can't understand this for the life of them. Establishment and Democrats can't understand this for the life of them. Look, guys, and Maggie gets a part of it wrong too, which is that Donald Trump actually wasn't gonna be charged with any of this stuff as long as he didn't run for president again, even though he did all of these crimes. Taking those top secret documents home is mental. It's insane. Of course, his biggest crime is that he had the false elector scheme to do a coup against America, and in this particular case did he do this crime Indisputably so. That's why it was so easy for the jury. And you mentioned that Michael Cohen is a convicted felon. Yeah, he was convicted for this same exact crime. They're co-conspirators. This is a serious case falsifying business records.
Speaker 7:Alvin Bragg you asked. You're not answering my question, which is why is it one rule applied to Trump but a very different set of rules applying to Bill?
Speaker 10:Clinton, who committed what I would argue were far worse offenses frankly than what Trump did in the Stormy Daniels case.
Speaker 11:No, piers, what? What your misunderstanding is that there's two different sets of rules for the powerful and the powerless. So the powerless will be convicted, will be tried on all these crimes. The powerful are never tried on any of these crimes. What, maga and you are complaining about is, oh my God, donald Trump is being treated like a normal person instead of one of the elites.
Speaker 10:If you want to push the point but, Jake.
Speaker 7:Jake, you're not listening.
Speaker 11:You're allowed to break all these laws.
Speaker 7:Jake, you're not listening. That's not what I'm putting to you.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what I'm putting to him.
Speaker 7:No, I'm asking you why Bill Clinton was never put through a criminal court, minster.
Speaker 3:Because he paid off lawyers to do it in the normal way.
Speaker 11:Not even close to worse Really, or is he doing it? In the normal way, not even close to worse. Really, pierce, yes, he's sexed with an intern in the Oval Office and then lying about it to the American people. No no.
Speaker 3:Paying off Paula Jones. Now let me ask when Bill Clinton had sex with the intern in the Oval Office, was Bill Clinton already president or was he running for president and trying to hide the fact that he had done something from the voters? The fact that Pierce is pretending to not see the difference is Pierce Morgan is yeah, he's a Donald Trump supporter. I've heard him on many other things. He was on the Apprentice, etc. Etc. People act as if he's on the left because he doesn't like guns. That's just British baggage. But this is just a funny way of trying to equate things as being the same. Even though they are morally the same, they're legally different. But I'll let this go just for a little bit longer, just because I want you to see some of the arguments that people are going to be having over the next few months.
Speaker 10:The settlement harassment case you don't think that's at least as bad as it's not worth. That's not even close to illegal. Trump had a one-night stand with a pollster 18 years ago.
Speaker 7:Who cares? He wasn't running for president then?
Speaker 11:Of course not, he was a business guy running for president. Of course he was a guy. Okay, listen back when Clinton was being impeached, et cetera, I was a Republican. But I, as always, I was unbiased and I said what are we? We started on a real estate deal. It turns out he didn't do anything wrong in the real estate deal.
Speaker 11:Now we're going into his personal life and then you dig and dig. It's all well, you did, you, you didn't. You denied the affair when you actually had the. Oh, what was he going to do? Admit it. And I was like guys, this is a fishing expedition. But what I'm trying to explain to your peers is that if you go on a fishing expedition on trump which I think they did, they weren't going to because he was one of the elites they were going. Merrick garland protected him for two and a half years the whole time. I'm screaming will you try him? Him already, he tried to kill you, idiot, and he let him stay there for two and a half years. But when you go on a fishing expedition with Donald Trump, you come back with a lot of fish.
Speaker 7:You come back with whales because you can't stop breaking the law. Okay, but when you go along with Bill Clinton, you catch a lot of fish too. Let's bring in George Santos. No, you didn't, no you didn't.
Speaker 10:Yes, you did?
Speaker 11:Oh, he paid off Paula Jones. That's not a crime, that's not even close to a crime, okay.
Speaker 7:Clearly not. If you're a Democrat, that's just settling a case. Okay, so when Trump settles the case, it's a crime. When Bill Clinton does, it's not.
Speaker 10:But that's not Wait a minute, even though Bill Clinton's case Even though Bill Clinton's case.
Speaker 3:Hang on, even though Now, did Donald Trump settle a crime? No, donald Trump actually, still, to this day, says it didn't happen. He still says it didn't happen. Settling a crime is admitting that it did happen, going through your lawyers through arbitrary means and having them legally drop a contract. You have a pawn, they have one in the office, the other person has one. Here's the money. We really can't hide it. They may have to sign the nda. It's all disgusting, but that's legal. Pierce is, uh, doing that thing that some people do in debates where they pretend to not understand simple concepts.
Speaker 11:You know, we falsify business records, right.
Speaker 7:In Bill Clinton's case, it was for sexual harassment. In Trump's case, it was simply a payoff to keep a porn star quiet.
Speaker 11:Again I say that the allegations that Paul the Jones made was more serious. No, listen, you're wrong on the facts. Settlement is not a crime.
Speaker 10:It is a crime, you can say it's terrible it's not a crime.
Speaker 11:So in the case of Donald Trump, falsifying business records is definitely a crime. 3,400 people went to jail for it under Alvin Bragg. So why should Donald Trump be above the law? It appears you're literally saying, even if you were right and Bill Clinton was, quote unquote, above the law, you're saying, well, Donald Trump should be above the law, he should be able to break any law he likes?
Speaker 7:No, I actually don't, Because he's one of the elites. Okay, I'm going to come to George Santos. I don't think it serves the American national interest to see a president one of the 46 people to hold this incredible office dragged through a criminal court over something so comparatively trivial. That would normally just be a stateless demeanor and it's been trumped up to be this huge felony. And it's a deliberate attempt to stop Trump winning the election.
Speaker 3:So yeah, if I said this on my show several times, I'm one of the softies on this. I don't keep.
Speaker 3:I didn't think Trump should have been brought up on any of the charges not because I think Trump is innocent, but because I think he was bad for the overall tone and tenor of what's going on in the country. I'm just a softie there. The polarization is so big in America right now. Now I would have just rather have we just let former President Trump go away, do whatever the heck he was going to be doing, let Joe Biden stumble around and let the admin state do what the admin state was going to do, and in four years we have another election, but the second you start to do you know the second all these charges start to pop up all over the place.
Speaker 3:I said it wasn't good for the country then. I do not think it is good for the country now.
Speaker 7:I mean it plays right into. Let me bring in George.
Speaker 8:How about a?
Speaker 11:coup. Is that a bad enough crime?
Speaker 7:A coup. He's facing other charges which, in my view, are more serious. George Santos, your response to all this?
Speaker 5:Well, look, pierce, it's very clear this is nothing more than a misdemeanor type of a case. They had to trump it up, no pun intended, in order to even bring the case to create relevancy. Pun intended in order to even bring the case to create relevancy. I've heard and we've heard from pundits on both the left and the right for the last two months that this was the weakest, the most full of flaws. The fact that the process alone that the judge set forward was so convoluted. We still don't know what crimes President Trump is found guilty of and he's convicted. So the reality of the case is it's it, it's, it's no, we don't not per se. It's and it's falling. It's gonna fall apart in appeals and we all know that. But here's the reality. America today doesn't have the moral ground to talk about Venezuela, to talk about Russia and Putin, because we're doing the same thing. We're persecuting our political opponents. Next step is we're going to start killing them, because the reality is what took place.
Speaker 7:Well, the one thing I would say, the one guaranteed thing and I'll bring in Vincent here the one guaranteed thing is that now the benchmark is being set by the Democrats to politically prosecute.
Speaker 5:Well, joe Biden, better buckle up.
Speaker 7:I'm about to say, that is that now they set the precedent for doing this. You don't think the Republicans are going to do exactly the same thing to the Democrats. Of course they are, and that's why I say it's not in America's national interest Wait a second, george Santos is talking about moral ground.
Speaker 9:I think I'm going insane here. The man who just got expelled from Congress for lying, repeatedly lying, to the prime minister, what the moral high ground is here?
Speaker 5:I think, george, what you think, but I'll say this my expulsion from Congress was arbitrary in its nature, right, because if you look at the process, it was also skewed, but I'm not here to debate that. I'm here to debate President Trump. If you want to talk about moral ground and if you want to give your opinion, I didn't come on the panel to hear your opinion and we also know he has no shame.
Speaker 9:Trump goes forward, he shows people what he can do. He gets away with it. Then, the next thing you know, the legislators are coming in. They make up CVs, they lie to death, they just sit it out. They then turn it into a movie. You are a creation of Donald Trump. It seems to me really obvious that I would argue. I would argue that Joe.
Speaker 5:Biden. Joe Biden is the creation of lying in politics. Joe Biden is top of his class in law school. Joe Biden had to drop out of an entire presidential run for plagiarizing. I mean, come on, you can't make that argument and ignore Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States, who is the lying commander in chief.
Speaker 7:Okay, let me bring in the biggest liar to ever be president of the United States. Thank you, george. Just bring in Vincent. You've been waiting patiently, vincent, you're here.
Speaker 10:Patiently, but I'm imploding inside because I'm hearing all this freaking nonsense. As I'm in here in this van, I'm picturing Lady that she's still standing tall in the greatest country in the world, but yesterday her blindfold was ripped off her, her scales were tipped and the snake at her feet won. Okay, this wasn't humiliation as much as chank, and whoever that lady is wants to talk crap much. He's not humiliated. He has the toughest skin out of anybody that I've ever seen as a president, because he's a new yorker and guess what? He? He doesn't give two dams. You know who was embarrassed. You know who was embarrassed. The country, okay, but you know what? Pierce Nobody's asking why.
Speaker 10:Why, since the day this man announced that he was going to run the left, everybody, the swamp, all these deep state they all turned on him. Everybody you know, from the DOJ Obama with spying on his campaign, from Hillary with 2016, with her BS dossier, with the Russian collusion, the two fake impeachments, the January 6th setup, cenk you. And this coup BS that you keep spewing with all the FBI agents in the crowd inside the Capitol. You're talking nonsense, cenk, okay. And then now this lawfare. It's ridiculous, okay. It's humiliating to the world and I want to say, uh, donald trump in 2024? I can't wait, okay, I cannot wait for him to come in. And 2020? That november is going to be. That's, from day one, a day of reckoning, and I hope he comes after all the democrats. Because what, by the way, hillary clinton and you mentioned bill cl, rape, sex allegations, rape Hillary with her emails, benghazi how many charges, how many trials? Peers Zero.
Speaker 7:Well, that is the point I've been trying to. Well, OK, I was actually going to ask.
Speaker 7:Emily. Emily, quickly on that point, because you wrote a powerful column today about how the women have all shown themselves to be very strong with Trump and the men have been spineless all around him, which is a perfectly reasonable argument to make. But again, that point which the Republicans keep making the double standard when it's applied to Bill Clinton in relation to Trump. You know, when you have a president, an actual sitting president, who had sex with an intern in the Oval Office and then lied to American people and paid off a woman for sexual harassment hundreds of thousands of dollars but was never brought to any accountability in a criminal court for any of that, a lot of Republicans say, well, hang on, why not? Why has Trump been singled out for what, in the end, is just a similar version to what Bill could?
Speaker 3:So look, the 90s happened fairly interesting. I was in middle school during the time. But what Piers Morgan is saying is somewhat silly Because, if I recall very correctly, there was a guy by the name of Ken Starr. There was the Starr Report. Bill Clinton was brought up on impeachment charges. You know they tried to do all this stuff. There was a special counsel.
Speaker 3:I remember the Speaker of the House, newt Gingrich, railing about moral character, all those things. And then I remember all the hypocrisy, of course, because Newt Gingrich was then found out to be cheating on his wife who was dying of cancer. And you know, I remember the famous scene where the person came out, whatever the congressman was or senator, and said Anytime anybody has a say, it's not about sex, that's because it's definitely about sex. Are not about sex? That's because it's definitely about sex. So, yes, bill clinton was was put to the ringer. It was, it was on every single station. We knew every juicy detail. We knew about the stain on the dress. That's why everybody knows who monica lew. You know, because Bill Clinton couldn't keep his hands off of anything that wasn't Hillary.
Speaker 7:It's a payoff to someone to get rid of a story you don't like.
Speaker 9:Yeah, okay, so the Trump conviction was not about the payoff and it was not about the sex and it was not actually about the women. It was about the falsification of campaign funds. It was falsifying his business deals. You can make of that what you will, and actually I think I would feel very similar thoughts if Bill Clinton's case were around today and we were discussing that. But I think that you're wrong to say that this is a Republican talking point, because the Republican talking points have really been set in stone for the last what four years we were hearing from Donald Trump in I remember August September of 2020, that the election was rigged. That was before anyone had been out to vote. He was already imagining that he would lose an election. He was preparing to tell the world that the thing that he was going to lose was rigged, so it wouldn't sound as bad for him. He's just a big fat liar and a loser and it's really sad to hear people, four years on, still with the same narrative. That's not even true.
Speaker 5:I'm sorry, Emily, Emily.
Speaker 10:He's Mandela.
Speaker 5:You don't get to say that in August he did.
Speaker 9:He did not say that in August he did, he did.
Speaker 10:Emily where do you live? Before he went to.
Speaker 4:Rome, emily, I'm just curious when do you live right now, emily? You're clearly not paying attention. Emily, I'm very curious, Emily.
Speaker 10:I'm very curious when do you live right now? Where do you live Are?
Speaker 9:you coming for me? I live in the UK. No, I'm not asking you. No, the UK. No, I'm not asking you. Hey, I'm asking you where you live.
Speaker 10:Because if you live in the United States of America, this past four years has been a complete shit show. Okay, trump can do, grab him by the vagina, whatever the hell. I would much rather have the mean guy with the mean tweets and kicking ass economy closed border than what's happening right now. I don't care about this stupid porn star for 20 years ago.
Speaker 10:It's about America and people like you and people like Cenk are just butthurt because you guys hate Donald Trump. You hate him because he loves America. Get over it. Ok, we have two case studies Donald Trump, donald Trump for four years, joe Biden for four years. All right, you guys are delusional.
Speaker 7:If you want Joe Biden, all right, you're delusional, ok, hang on, hang on, hang on. We've got to be joined by the eminent pollster Frank Luntz. Frank, thank you for joining me in the studio here. Things are getting a little heated, as they often do so.
Speaker 3:Frank Luntz gets into it, which I think this was good. So I'm going to let Frank Luntz say what he has to say. His segment was good. What's actually fairly interesting is I was just looking over some polling that actually shows that it's actually a wash.
Speaker 3:What actually happens is the economy can be exactly the same If Republicans are in office. Democrats automatically feel like the economy is awful, and the numbers can be exactly the same as it was when the Republican was in office or when the Democrat was in office. Democrats will say the economy is bad, et cetera, et cetera. And it actually showed through historical trends in this poll that when Democrats Democrats are in office, even if the economy is the same or better, even if the unemployment is the same or better, even if everything that's happening in the military is the same or better, republicans feel exactly the same way. Republicans will say the military is in decline. It doesn't matter if the crime rate is up or down. Republicans will say the crime rate is awful. It doesn't matter if the economy is good or bad. Republicans will say the economy is awful. It doesn't matter if the economy is good or bad. Republicans will say the economy is awful.
Speaker 3:That is just the partisan nature of the way the United States of America is set up. Now it actually does not actually matter what's happening at the country at the time when Americans are not in power. They pout, they pout, they whine and they cry about everything, and not about everything that's happening on the dinner table, about everything that's happening in perpetuity. That's what americans do. If, if you were to go out and get stung by a bee obviously that's hyperbole you're gonna say damn it, obama, you know it's because the the pesticides that I used to use, and da, da, da da, and they did this act and you're gonna look how, some way, you can connect that to the administration that you don't like. That is as American as that delicious, delicious apple pie.
Speaker 7:Let me just ask you, on a strict polling perspective, what has been the kind of instant fallout from all this? I mean, has there been an impact either way on Trump's chances of winning the presidency?
Speaker 12:We did two focus groups last night. I need to preface it. I don't know if this makes you proud. I'm watching them yell at each other and act like idiots all sides. I know that the American people are more divided than they've ever been. I actually care about this. You're both British and American in what you do. God help the British if they become like the Americans. You think that the average American looking at this will be proud.
Speaker 7:I actually think the whole debate around Donald Trump has become a bit like the Brexit debate in the UK so toxic and so tribal, and so many people just lose their minds when talking about Trump, and that's why I always try and bring it back to, if I can, a sense of perspective and fairness, which is has he been treated how other presidents have been treated for their own situations, like Bill Clinton with Paula Jones, the payoff with Monica Lewinsky and so on?
Speaker 12:So the question there is in asking the undecided, the swing voters, people who vote Democrat and Republican first, they do not believe these charges should have been brought. They don't think this is a big deal. The other cases are significant. This one is not. Second, they think Trump is guilty of this. The public does think that Trump is wrong. Third is that nobody wants him to go to jail over this. They don't want him. This is why the American people want to change who the nominee is. They look at one candidate and they say, my God, he's so old. They look at the other candidate and they think my God, he's so dishonest, and that's why over 70 percent of Americans don't want this matchup.
Speaker 12:The truth is, both sides Democrats and Republicans are trying to defend something that the American people don't want, and as someone you and I've had a few conversations like this, this used to break my heart. Now I'd say to them I'm not going to even say shut up, then I'm playing their game, cut it out. The damage that this is doing to the democracy, to the belief that democracy doesn't work, that no one's listening, that they'd rather have a food fight than actually get something done. In the end. Inflation is more important than this trial. Immigration is more important on the democratic side, abortion is more important and health care is more important. We're having the shouting match, this food fight, when, in fact, americans believe that Washington doesn't get anything done. Should he have been prosecuted for this? They don't think so. I can't answer that because I'm a pollster. I can tell you what the impact is and it is awful, and if you love your, your country, as these people say that they do, they'll stop behaving this way.
Speaker 7:It really is that bad has it improved or diminished his chances of winning?
Speaker 12:them it well. It's raised to more money in one day than any ever before, and his base is even stronger. Here's the problem. The public is afraid that it's now made it more likely that after the next debate or the next trial, we're going to see violence. The public now believes that it's less likely that we will come together when the election is over. Pierce, this stuff matters. We are at the precipice of blowing ourselves up. We can replay this whole thing right now, six months from now, and say my God, we saw it happening and we didn't do anything to stop it. You're the only one who has an American and a British audience, an American and a British sensibility. I know this is good for ratings. I know that people get a kick out of this. It's entertaining. But I'll tell you guys something right now. You continue to behave that way, making faces insulting each other. You're destroying the tenets of democracy we have to stop.
Speaker 7:Well, let me ask the panel let's get them back up, let's get their reaction to that.
Speaker 3:I'm going to act like I'm on the panel now. I thought that was. I thought Frank Luntz was spot on there, because I think what he's saying is absolutely true. I saw a poll, because this is the kind of thing I look at. 70% of Republicans Democrats did not want this option, but this is what they got.
Speaker 3:And I also like the nuance of the whole conversation of look, americans are intelligent enough to say one, we don't believe this trial should be going on. But two, we also think that donald trump did what people are saying that he did, and they and you're putting americans in this strange position where now we have to act like my eyes and my ears are not my eyes and my ears, and whatever Fox News or MSNBC tells me is actually correct. That position is untenable and it is not going to hold for long. And we keep talking about this concept of oh yes, look, look, look. We cannot keep having America divided. Well, that doesn't work if the two sides don't want to reach their hands out and shake and say, look, we lost. There was no cheating. Yet it's over. This system can't function if every time somebody loses, they lie and say it was somebody was cheating and we also have to have the same conversation where we say and we also have to have the same conversation we say well, when things are important, sometimes people cheat.
Speaker 3:I would say the biggest form of cheating this is going to be controversial, but I say the biggest form of cheating is by doing the thing that we all know that you get to do, which is, I don't know have large amounts of money that influence everything in a way that it drowns out the other voices who don't have those resources. I consider that cheating, but I'm the minority in that position.
Speaker 7:Check you. Guys will follow the program.
Speaker 11:Yeah, yeah. So look, I actually agree and disagree. So when Frank says that, hey, 70% of Americans don't want either one of these candidates, I totally agree. I'm with the American people. So when George Santos says that Joe Biden's a liar, he's right. That's one of the rare things he's right about. Joe Biden's a huge liar. He lied about getting arrested with Nelson Mandela fighting apartheid. That is a giant, giant light, let alone the fact that almost all of our politicians are liars. The reality is, they take campaign contributions and then they do exactly what their donors tell them corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans. So that's why I'm a party's. I agree with the American people.
Speaker 11:But, on the other hand, here's where Frank is wrong. So, brother, what do you want me to do? These guys come on and they say absurd things like oh, it's okay to invade the Capitol. It's Trump has thick skin. He's the thinnest skin I've ever seen. He's a little child. Trump breaks law after law. He used to hire undocumented immigrants. He's cheated and lied throughout his entire life. So what do you want me to do?
Speaker 12:Not fight back and just go, oh you're right, everybody is bad, so Trump should be allowed to break all the laws. Okay, your point is a good one, because George is just going to sit and talk over you and I know that you can't get hurt. But the better approach to this and we've tested this is literally silence. Now peers will be upset because that doesn't get ratings, but everyone knows what George's background is is it's a fair comment to say that he was literally tossed out of congress, but why do you respond in kind just because he's going to yell over you and the gentleman with the tie? I saw you making those faces and waving your hands and all that. Would you exactly? Would you want your kids to behave that way?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, that's the part I'm gonna stop playing, because that was um, when it got, it went off the rails. The the frank's lunch is literally saying that the way they're behaving is immature, and the guy goes on and says, well, I don't know't know about this guy, but he's got fake hair or something like that, or he dyes his hair and I don't like his suit. Instead of dealing with the crux of what is being said, he goes on to insult how the guy looks, I don't know, and I think Frank Lutz had a bit of courage there also by calling Pierce Morgan out to his face and saying Look, you know this isn't serious, you know this is going to create fireworks and you're just doing this for ratings. The last voice that I'm going to go to on this is somebody that was in Trump's cabinet, who I disagree with on a lot of things, but I think he he uh explained something thorough enough and had enough pushback for Piers Morgan, where I think we'll let this one ride out and we're going to end the show um, uh, after this clip, because I don't want the show to arbitrarily, um, run extremely long.
Speaker 3:There's going to be a lot more to say on this topic, obviously A lot more to say, but I'm already at an hour and 12 minutes and I don't want this to be a two-hour show. We kind of get the gist of it. But here we go. This is from John Bolton, the former Trump aide. I want to say he was the National Security Advisor, somebody who, yeah, I don't want to use hyperbolic language about what I think about John Bolton, who I just was just saying from my view of the military industrial complex. I just say John Bolton's been historically wrong on a lot of things. Here we go.
Speaker 7:From 2018 to 2019. John Bolton, thank you for joining me. First of all, your reaction to the conviction of the first conviction of any American president in history.
Speaker 8:Well, it's obviously one of the most unhappy historical events we've had in a long time. There's a lot that can be said in criticism of this whole trial. I said the day this indictment came down that if Trump won in November it could be because of this indictment. But the fact is now you've had 12 ordinary citizens nobody can say they're part of the deep state who found Trump guilty, and I think that it's certainly the case that the immediate reaction is to fire up Trump's base. Of course the campaign was ready for that and wasn't entirely spontaneous combustion. The question for November is whether non-Trump-based people Republicans, democrats, independents care enough about not electing a convicted felon to the presidency not to vote for him. And we just don't know the answer to that question, and anybody who says they know the answer is really making it up, because we're in totally uncharted territory.
Speaker 7:There's a quote from Viktor Orban, of course, the president of Hungary. I've known President Trump to be a man of honor. As president, he always put America first. He commanded respect around the world and used his respect to build peace. Let the people make their verdict this November. Keep on fighting, mr President. There will be a lot of support from around the world and there'll be a lot of people who will be not feeling very good about the fact that the next president may be a convicted felon From an international perspective. How do you think this will play out if Trump was to win?
Speaker 8:Well, I think, internationally. If I were in the Kremlin or if I were in Beijing, I'd very much want Trump to win, because they think he's such an easy mark. And this may in fact, make him easier, because a lot of people will be convinced that this trial was legitimate Maybe some of the others will be too and that that will inhibit him from really being able to act effectively we just don't know at this point from really being able to act effectively.
Speaker 7:We just don't know at this point. Should it have been broad at all this case, given the relative triviality of it? Ultimately, it's about paying hush money to a porn star for an alleged one-night stand that he 20 years ago, when he was a TV star and real estate magnate, not a politician. If the bar is set that low for dragging an American president through a criminal prosecution and making him sit in the courtroom for two months, inevitably Republicans are going to want to return the favor and do this to the Democrats. How does any of that going forward help America?
Speaker 8:Well, the crime that he the underlying crime is cooking the books of his company, right, that is the financial fraud involved. To me it's less this case, but that is a state misdemeanor, isn't?
Speaker 7:it. I mean really. I mean you could construct an argument. For example, when Bill Clinton paid off Paula Jones over sexual harassment allegations, he's doing that to protect his reputation that could have a material effect on an election.
Speaker 3:I mean, once you take that argument it's so funny to me because, look like I said this whole thing was an hour four minutes and 34 seconds. Pierce morgan said that particular thing over and, over, and, over and over. It was like that was the one point he had and he was good. It was just his debate tactic. No matter what was said, no matter who refuted the fact, no matter what they pointed out about why that wasn't the same, he was going to say the exact same thing, like look, I've read this one thing on the chalkboard and I'm going to repeat it ad nauseum. Look, I've read this one thing on the chalkboard and I'm going to repeat it ad nauseum. It just showed me that, look, if I'm ever stuck somewhere in a debate and I run out of things to say, I'm going to start using the Piers Morgan tactic where I just say the same thing over and over again. It had to frustrate the heck out of them. Because it frustrated the heck out of me.
Speaker 8:You're confusing crimes together. You're confusing crimes together. You're confusing crimes together. No, no, I'm just saying that when you pay the point I want to make.
Speaker 7:If you pay people off. Can I make my point? Yes, sure, it's not that.
Speaker 8:Yeah here. Why don't I hang on? I've been waiting for 40 minutes to get on here. You know, what this shows is not the criminal conviction point, but the lack of character point. I don't think there are many American voters who have ever even seen a porn star in person, let alone slept with them, let alone paid hush money, and I think, when they think of their children and grandchildren, this is not the model they want for the generations coming along, the model they want for the generations coming along. That is the impact, quite apart from the conviction, of having this sleazy, tawdry lifestyle of Donald Trump out there in front of the American people.
Speaker 7:And do you think that having sex with an intern in the Oval Office and paying off a woman who accused you of sexual harassment?
Speaker 3:is any better.
Speaker 8:Of course not. What a silly question.
Speaker 7:Well, Bill Clinton was never prosecuted for any of that.
Speaker 8:Yeah, look, he was also impeached, and they failed to get a conviction, which was a clear mistake.
Speaker 7:He wasn't put through a criminal trial. That's my point and that's where the double standard is.
Speaker 8:Well, isn't that too bad? So look, there are plenty of double standards out there. You know there's an interesting question of democratic theory. The district attorney in Manhattan is elected and he campaigned. Alvin Bragg campaigned that he was going to get Trump, and the people of New York elected him. They gave him a mandate to do it. If you believe in democratic theory, you know, if you don't, I understand.
Speaker 7:A democrat city appointed a democrat guy to take down Trump in a court that was probably dominated by democrats.
Speaker 8:The democratic theory point has nothing to do with democrats or republicans, conservative or labor. It has to do with the voice of the people speaking, and they did speak and and they elected this guy. But you know, a lot of the critics of this decision have challenged the jury's objectivity and and this is a very serious matter, because there are many kinds of biases that juries all across the country could display Ethnic, racial bias, gender bias, political bias, religious bias Every jury in America, in every criminal case is told put your personal feelings aside, judge on the basis of the facts that you see reported in court and the laws the court instructs you, and if you don't believe that system works, then you don't believe in the jury system. And that's what trump supporters are attacking here with no evidence.
Speaker 7:All right, john bolton, thank you very much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Jump back to the so, yeah, look, that was um. Like I said, um, not somebody. I normally agree with John Bolton, but I thought he brought up some decent points, at least in that segment, and I have seen people questioning the legitimacy of the jury pool, et cetera, et cetera, and it's not just in this case. I've been very interested in a lot of critiques of people that I pay attention to. I am on Twitter, although I do not. I'm not active on Twitter enough to be responding and debating an argument with anybody, because it's just a waste of time. I've actually got to the point in my life where I actually don't think debates actually move the dial at all. I think it's just a practice of who has the best rhetorical skills, who's best at evading, who can look more handsome at the time, and I think that's what it's all about.
Speaker 3:But, at any rate, even when it came to the prosecution of Derek Chauvin in the murder, uh, with, uh, george floyd, and people say, oh, this was started and uh, derek chauvin should not be in prison, and I go look at the facts of the case and all this stuff and I just say, well, I can't attest to whether somebody should be in prison or not. I wasn't on the damn jury. Derek Chauvin had a lawyer. Okay, derek Chauvin worked for the state as a party of the state, the enforcement arm of the state for years he went and faced a state, the enforcement arm of the state for years he went and faced a state official, called a judge. He was being prosecuted by the state, the Attorney General, keith Ellison. Derek Shover didn't depend on the judge, who also worked for the state, to handle his affairs. He got a private lawyer as well. So he wasn't even dealing with the fact that he had to deal with the lawyer from the state. Derek Chauvin was dealing with a jury, jury and he was judged by a jury of his peers and he was judged by a jury of his peers. So 12 people looked at Derek Chauvin and said guilty.
Speaker 3:And so now, because we don't, or some people don't like the verdict of that. They say, well, no, that's because X, y, z. So how do you fix that situation? Are you going to have a set of laws where only people can sit on juries? If a police officer is involved, are police officers, and the only person that can sit on a jury. If a lawyer is involved, are the lawyers, and the only people that can sit on a jury? If presidents are involved, I guess other living presidents and the only people that can consider on juries if judges are involved or other judges. This just gets ridiculous. This gets ridiculous. It may not be a perfect system, but it's the only damn system that we got, and this is going to sound shocking.
Speaker 3:I will even commend former president donald trump because, even if he did think everything was unfair, even if he does critique and question institutions, which I also at times often do, what donald trump did was he sat through the process. He did not not show up to court. He didn't get an army of people to parricade Mar-a-Lago and sit there and say I will not be judged by you people, as much as we like to say, or people like to say that Donald Trump is some big bad monster. Who is the next Hitler. Donald Trump went to court Now, no, he did not testify on his own behalf, which he lied and said he would do, but he respected the process to sit there, show up, be quiet and let the process work itself out, and he will do what a lot of us probably should do sometimes and we are found guilty, he's gonna appeal and and god bless him for at least, no matter what you think of donald trump at least doing that.
Speaker 3:I don't care what somebody says when they get outside of the courtroom, I just care that if they're gonna pretend like this whole thing isn't a sham which a lot of times I believe that it is we have to. We have to congratulate them when they do things right. Donald Trump sat through the process. He let the jurors deliberate, he let them find him guilty, he let his lawyers do the work, and I'm just asking that maybe we should also let our system function like it's supposed to be functioned. The system cannot just be legitimate if it gives us the means that we always want to have. I only believe in the justice system if it always gives me the results that I want is not a legitimate system, because I am biased in my own favor. Let me end with something comical and I'll the law, and the law won.
Speaker 2:I fought the law, and the law won. Take me home, mommy. This is too tough for me.